Tag Archives: stop complaining

I want to give you a tip today that will allow you to achieve success with faster results.

Simple… yet powerful idea… ready?

For the past few months, I got caught up in one area of my life with a little bout of complaining. It was in my health. I was travelling and was having a hard time keeping up with my diet and sleep on the road. And… I knew it. And, I complained about it.

But wait, let me clarify before I go any further…

What’s the difference between a complaint and a declaration? Does not complaining mean turning a blind eye to the problem and being a “pollyanna”?

According to Webster’s there are three complaint definitions:

1. Expression of grief, pain, or dissatisfaction.

2. Something that is the cause or subject of protest or outcry.

3. A formal allegation against a party.

So – how do we make the leap from complaint to declaration?

Ken Blanchard, from his famous “One Minute Manager” sums it up nicely:

“If you can’t tell me what you’d like to be happening, you don’t have a problem yet. You’re just complaining. A problem only exists if there is a difference between what is actually happening and what you desire to be happening.”

And that’s the difference… right… there.

Webster’s defines a “declaring” as:

1. To make known as a determination.

2. To make clear

If you look at the word and it’s latin roots… delcare breaks down into “de” which translates into “thoroughly” and “clarus” which translates into “clear”.

So, to delcare something is to make your outcome thoroughly clear.

The problem is… most of us aren’t sure what our outcome is and so we aren’t clear.

Here’s the bottomline. If all you do is look a the problem and make it bigger, you will always have something to complain about it.

I know that I did. I was complaining about the smallest and silliest things. About how airports didn’thave healthy food, and it was impossible to sleep on red-eyes, or that the mini-bar in the hotel fridge was always packed with sugar or that it was just “too” hard to eat cleanly on the road.

I wasn’t focused on outcome. And I forgot a core truth… there’s no such thing as a rich, wealthy, healthy and happy complainer.

There is so much to complain about in the world today. We can complain about the Government, Trump, the cold ass weather, going to our job that we hate or the state of the world.

And when all we do is complain… well… we add to the very thing we dislike.

To switch is to go from simply complaining… to declaring how you desire it to be and then making that so. In your declaration, you do not discount what is wrong. You simply foocus on closing the gap between what is happening and how you desire it to be.

So – here is my challenge for you. Should you choose to accept it, you will get faster results (you might also anger people you know… intimately). So, I want to warn you that this challenge is not for the faint of heart.

Join me in a 2 week (14 day) “no complaint” challenge. For two weeks, stop all complaining in what you say and what you think… when you find yourself complaining… bring it back and re-focus on closing the gap between what’s happening and how you desire it to be.

Make your outcomes thoroughly clear and then speak them into existence and align your actions with your words.

Let me know if you’re going to take me up on this challenge and tell me how it’s going. I’m going to want to hear about and see your progress for the next two weeks. And… notice, who in your life will easily complain with you? Might be time to take a step back and surround yourself with declarers, not complainers.

For me, my delcaration is that I am healthy, fit and strong. I exercise daily and eat foods that are aligned with my highest health and support my microbiome and that travelling is an opportunity for me to double down on my self-love and self-care.